Rembrandt: a portrait of the artist as a young lad

It is well known that the Dutch Master, Rembrandt, painted himself throughout his lifetime, from his early 20s to the year of his death in 1669, when he was established as one of the most influential artists of his age.

Yet now, a portrait of the artist has been unearthed, which is the earliest depiction of Rembrandt as a hopeful teenager, not as he would have liked to have been seen but how he looked to a fellow art student in Amsterdam.

Jan Lievens painted Rembrandt at the age of 16, as the central figure in The Cardplayers, which is believed to have been completed in 1623-24. Dr Arthur Wheelock, an art historian at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, identified the portrait, according to a report in this week's Art Newspaper...